


a healthy respect

by enflashings



Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 01:34:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5356001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enflashings/pseuds/enflashings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kou asks Haru to come and wear his jacket, but what she really wants is his opinion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a healthy respect

**Author's Note:**

> i'm salty there's not more interaction between these two in canon so i wrote this last year as a self-soothing exercise. this is also the closest i will ever stray towards ~issue~ fic.

“Pleeeeeaaaase?”

Haru frowns at the interior of his locker, hunching up one shoulder to keep his phone in place while he rifles through his bag for a clean t-shirt. “Ask Rin to do it.”

“How am I going to do that? Make him do a Skype conference?”

“Yes,” Haru guesses. He’s been using Skype for years now, but the word ‘conference’ conjures up a much more professional and polished image than the one to which Haru has grown accustomed to seeing in his late night conversations with Rin. He’s not sure what he should be envisioning: probably board rooms and business suits. Probably not any nudity. 

“Haruka-sempai,” Kou says, a hint of laughter tucked in the corners of each syllable of his name and the suffix she really no longer needs to use. Haru won’t tell her otherwise, though; as long as it’s not -chan, it’s not worth the fuss. “Trust me, that wouldn’t work. Please do it for me? I’ll buy you dinner.”

Haru pauses, which is a giveaway he really needs to work on concealing better. He’s still standing at his locker, t-shirt in one hand, not sure how to put it on while still carrying on a phone conversation.

“You can definitely get mackerel,” she assures him, pressing her advantage in the particular and ultimately benevolent way the troublesome former kouhai in Haru’s life tended to do. “And, I won’t tell my brother.”

It’s an undeniably tempting incentive. 

Haru sighs, and Kou makes a happy sound. “Thank you thank you thank you! I’ll text you details later today, okay?”

“Okay,” says Haru.

* * *

“You brought your Tobiuo jacket with you, right?” Haru nods. He hadn’t minded following that directive (it’s a nice jacket and there was a good chance he’d have worn it anyway), but he’s not sure of the purpose behind it. “Great! Can you put it on?”

Haru doesn’t like this idea. He wants to take off the clothes he already has on, not add more to them. He frowns, and Kou’s hands take up a threatening position on her hips. 

“It won’t kill you,” she points out. Haru pulls his brows together tighter; the lethality of putting on clothing isn’t an issue here. Kou continues to stare him down, but in a worrying sort of way, like she’s distracted a bit, which means she’s probably thinking of alternate approaches, and Haru isn’t surprised or any less dismayed when she says, “My brother would do it.”

“That’s why I said to ask him to do it.”

They’re going in circles. Haru would rather be in the pool, and Kou would clearly rather just win the argument already. Her win:lose ratio is worlds better than Rin’s. The absent thought causes the part of Haru that is dedicated to missing Rin to give a mournful little blip, like a constantly sweeping radar. 

He puts on the jacket.

* * *

“Was that so hard?” They’re leaving the aquatic centre, and it’s still far too early for dinner.

“It’s not pleasant,” Haru says. He’s not going to be diplomatic about it, especially not to Kou. The public spectacle and semi-celebrity aspect of professional sports hasn’t gotten any less off-putting to him, he’s just gotten better at putting it out of mind. Kou gives him a little smile.

“It must’ve been nice that my brother did so much of it, last Olympics.”

It really had been. Rin’s position on becoming Tobiuo’s media darling is, like many positions Rin holds, mercurial and contrarian: when told he does it well, he’s all relief and gratification for effort paying off; when told he’s a spotlight hog, he will yell and deny it to the grave and then refuse to make Haru’s next interview a joint one. Haru could’ve done without that last part.

Regardless, the fact is that Rin is good in front of cameras. The media is all too happy to gravitate towards him and away from Haru’s recalcitrance and dour attitude and blandly inscrutable comments. 

“Mm,” he says. 

* * *

“Thanks again, though, really,” Kou impresses, once they’re settled at the cafe she’s decided will tide them over until dinner. Haru orders some manner of pineapple drink, and Kou gets halfway through a sentence that is a lot less judgmental than Haru usually hears when the topic is his dietary choices before he has to cut her off.

“You said you wouldn’t tell Rin.”

“About mackerel!”

“Mackerel isn’t on the menu so I can’t order it,” Haru retorts, well used to this sort of highly technical argument. “This counts, in its place.”

Kou sighs, tells herself more than him that one day of heightened fructose intake probably won’t wreck his nutritional profile, and sets her hands on the table, fingers interlaced. 

Haru has to fight the urge to sit up straight and maybe also lean back in his seat. A Matsuoka adopting an earnest posture is an event he has a healthy respect for. Instead he takes a sip from his glass of water and tries to embody the cool guy Rin always accuses him of being.

“Can I ask you something?”

This time Haru really does sit up a little straighter, and the only way he can think to disguise it is by fidgeting, which is obviously even worse. “Yeah.”

“What sort of—I mean, you’ve had a lot of coaches and interacted with a lot of support staff,” she says. “Have you respected all of them?”

Haru blinks. He’s never been asked anything along those lines before and doesn’t know how he should begin to formulate an opinion, never mind an answer. Kou looks startled and lifts up her hands to wave them in correction.

“No, no, I worded that badly. I don’t mean it as a criticism, it’s an honest question!”

Of course it is, though. Haru’s doubtful either Matsuoka sibling is capable of anything but. 

“Why do you ask,” he hedges. She falls into what Haru assumes is quiet thought. His pineapple whatever and Kou’s tea come before she answers, but the silence is comfortable in a genuine way. It’s not at all like the silences Haru used to impose on people like a wall, and Haru’s glad for it.

“So, I had more than one reason for wanting you to come today,” she says at last, the set of her eyebrows serious. “I’m trying to develop that sort of aura.”

“Aura,” Haru echoes, feeling a little lost. She nods. Haru half-expects to see her ponytail cast about in the air, though her hair’s been in a casual but complicated-looking knot at her nape all day.

“Like, a super authoritative aura,” Kou confirms. “Or even, authoritative, without the super.”

“That’s something you lack?” says Haru, because he wants to respect her seriousness but also cannot suppress the flicker towards questioning that his intonation takes on. 

She nods, and Haru can’t be sure, but he thinks an unhappy expression was lost, probably intentionally, in the movement. 

“Maybe because I’ve never been a swimmer myself,” she says. “Or because I’m young. I don’t know. I thought, since you came today, and I used to be your manager, even if it was only in high school, you could give me your opinion?”

This time it’s Haru who falls into thoughtful silence, although he’s not nearly as successful at the end of it.

“I don’t think any of us thought you weren’t authoritative.” It’s not a helpful answer, no matter how kindly Kou tries to smile behind her teacup. Haru wracks his brain and finds only advice on making small talk: ask questions. “Do you think someone does? Think that.”

She’s just like Rin in that her entire countenance shows it when she feels cornered by something unpleasant or difficult, a slight slump towards dejection before quickly heaving herself back up, aiming for confidence and overshooting.

“Well, just as a hypothetical!”

“Kou,” Haru says, flatly. She laughs, and she’s much more convincing than Rin ever is, Haru will give her that. Not that it’s a high bar to clear. “Just say it. Or tell Rin,” he adds, to appease the voice in the back of his head that’s muttering about Rin learning of this conversation somehow and chewing Haru out for quote-bullying-unquote his little sister.

She laughs again and it’s more genuine, but only because it’s wry. “No way. He’d get all protective.”

Haru has the inexplicable reflex to protest, not on Rin’s behalf (because Kou’s absolutely right), but on his own. He certainly isn’t an overprotective idiot, but he’s not apathetic about her well-being, either, and Haru hopes she realizes he’s closer to Rin’s end of the spectrum than not.

“Okay,” Kou exhales. “You met them today, the team I’m doing my clinical placement with, and I’m pretty sure they think I don’t know what I’m talking about. But,” again that wry laugh, “they probably shouldn’t be so blatant about acting like I’m incompetent, if they’re going to turn around and ask me out five minutes after practice. That’s really bad technique, and believe me, I know bad technique.”

“Why,” Haru asks. He’s all right with how harshly the word comes out. Kou shrugs it off.

“Like I said, because I’m young? Because I don’t swim?” She watches Haru as he remembers his pineapple whatever exists and he swears she waits and only speaks once he can’t respond for being occupied with drinking. “Because I’m a woman, probably.”

“What does that have to do with swimming?” Haru frowns, although his pineapple whatever is really quite good, as it turns out. “Or with managing a team?”

“Nothing, but I can’t do anything about that,” she says, the pace of her words picking up like they’re being disobedient and she’s trying to hurry them along, “so I’m asking for advice on how I can improve the things I can do something about.”

Haru obligingly lets himself be steered. “No one felt that way about you,” he repeats. As an example, he adds: “You made us eat protein powder.”

“Get over it,” she snorts, unsympathetically. Haru’s eyes narrow. He’s gotten over it, he just hasn’t forgotten. There’s a difference. “Well, that’s good to know.”

“It’s not helpful.” That much is obvious.

“Well—”

“Was it helpful for me to come today?” He’s not sure, truth be told, what he’d accomplished vis-a-vis any of the motives that have now been flung about when all he had done was show up, give his variant on The Speech (a treatise on perseverance, hard work, and many other adjectives that bring Rin to mind, an association that gives his words sincerity despite Haru’s use of the same template followed by every other successful athlete on the planet), and swim. Two of those three things had been easy, and the other was a rote inconvenience at worst. 

“Hopefully. I was thinking maybe you’d help my credibility?” She slumps forward. “I’m sorry, I kind of—no,” she corrects, lifting her head and resting one cheek on her palm, “I definitely brag about knowing you and having been your team manager for a while.”

“Rin says ridiculous things about me all the time,” Haru points out, though he doubts he really needs to. Kou was probably one of Rin’s first victims, and for coming out of that experience largely unscathed, Haru can only respect her. “It’s not going to bother me if you tell the truth.”

“My brother tells the truth,” she disagrees. Haru just stares at her. “Well, he starts with the truth and then it just—he just—” she makes a complicated sort of hand gesture before sighing in a profound way at the cafe’s ceiling. Haru couldn’t put words to it, but he knows that feeling exactly. “Look, onii-chan’s himself, and anyway you’re his boyfriend, of course he’s going to be stupid when he talks about you. I certainly don’t have to be.”

“Thank you,” Haru tells her, honestly meaning it, even in the face of her peal of laughter.

* * *

_i’ll come again if you want. just ask._

Haru sends the text after no deliberation at all, the last thing he does before sinking into the bath for a pre-Skype soak. He’s sure the chime his phone gives a minute or so later is Kou’s reply; less sure if she’ll ever take him up on his invitation, if it’s valued even as a pointless gesture.

_You’re sweet, Haruka-sempai. <3 I’m sure the team would be grateful for any time you’re willing to give them!_

It’s not a yes or a no, and half the text isn’t about Kou at all. Haru doesn’t message her back—though it wouldn’t be bad, to be late for his Skype date and have the excuse ‘I was talking with your baby sister, and by the way, have you called her lately?’ to throw in Rin’s dumb, wonderful face.

Maybe he’ll just say the last part.


End file.
